Poll: People Hate Living in Anti-Gun States, 50% Would Move

I’m generally pretty pleased with the results that Gallup comes up with. They do a fairly good job of asking accurate questions and properly analyzing the results, and as such I try to use their numbers if at all possible. So when Gallup released the above image, they no longer had just my interest — they had my undivided attention. The map comes from a recent survey of Americans asking them if they liked living in their current state, and if they would leave given the opportunity. The results were pretty clear: those states that scored highest on the Brady Campaign’s rankings of gun control fealty also scored the worst in terms of driving the people who live there to leave . . .

One of the questions asked was whether, given the chance, the survey takers would want to leave the state in which they currently reside. If they had the financial ability, would they pull up stakes and move to greener pastures? According to the poll, 50% of residents in the gun control capitol of the world (Illinois) want to skedaddle. And the civilian disarmament havens of Connecticut and Maryland don’t fare much better.

Even more interesting is the percentage of residents who have already decided to make the move. These aren’t just people who would like to move, but those who have already made the conscious decision to GTFO. Nevada tops the list, but Illinois is right behind it.

To be fair, there are many other reasons why people choose to leave the places they live. Factors range from economic reasons to being closer to friends and family, but when looking at the map you can’t help but subconsciously superimpose the Brady Campaign’s map over top.

In general states with the most gun control legislation also have the most people running for the border to anywhere else. And yet Texas doesn’t even register. Because it’s awesome, and who would want to leave?

Another CA People’s paradise dweller. I’ve looked at condos is Arizona with an exit to CA in mind. . Depends where my kids want to go to college. And kissing goodbye to all the improvements ($$$$) made to our barn, here, is a major disincentive. A condo in AZ… with a decent gun safe… How far is it to drive to AZ on the weekends? This is sounding semi-viable.

Same here. I was born here, and raised in the foothills where people still believe in hard work. I’m working towards my BS in Mechanical Engineering now. And as soon as I graduate in ’16, I’ll be leaving and taking my talents to Texas. Enjoy the brain drain, California.

Don’t go to Texas is like the 4th reich just go not guilty on jury duty you don’t have to keep your promise on jury duty BrailFord vs Georgia just keep your mouth shut and don’t explain anything the only way we can get our votes to count is on jury duty

Take your frustrations out on jury duty you don’t have to keep your promise on jury duty brailsford vs jury just go not guilty it is the only way to get our votes to count in this state just don’t explain anything

I kinda like the “Stand and Fight” mentality, especially that some of us show here in Tennessee. When unlicensed open carry got shot down by the House Finance Subcommittee, several of us cried foul. TFA is even trying to investigate.

That said, I can’t blame anybody for wanting to leave New York or the State of Chicago.

Just moved to WA from Texas, for work in the gun industry, and I feel like the laws are even more slack here than they were in TX in regards to carry. For being pretty liberal up here, the laws aren’t bad.

With that said, if any fellow Washingtonian is reading this DEFEAT I-594 ON YOUR BALLOT.

Thats because you have King County (Seattle) and then you have WA State. Youd notice a huge difference (minus tacoma and olympia) by going outside the King County area in the mentality of people both politically and firearms related.

Carry is much easier here. Shall issue, no training requirement, and the issuing authority has a statutory maximum of 30 days to process the application. Many of the smaller ones issue in less than a week.

There will be a fight to keep our laws from being gutted. I-594 is their trial balloon and must be shot down. It’s going to be extremely difficult, because there are enough voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties to get it over the line and most people aren’t going to think about it before voting for it. I get a sick feeling when I think about it, actually.

Nevada could use a few less residents to keep the state from turning completely blue. We have some of the most sane gun laws in the nation. if only Vegas would abandon their blue tendencies Nevada IMO could be the most liberal(as in free) state in the union.

Looks like I am moving to Reno by the 19th to start a new job. So excited but I loathe to give up my CA ccw since I will be in a border town. What do man what do… Getting the nevada license/residency is so much better on the Funs side.

Cali born and raised also lived HI for several years. Looking for and excuse to get out of CA again and getting a job offer is the best start.

If all the CA liberals (and East Coast liberals that moved here for jobs) moved out of Vegas it would be ghost town.

Also (with the exception of Clark County) we DO have some great FA laws. That said, our assembly tried to sell us up the river last year when Bloomderp’s minions tried an end-run on their gun-control agenda. Without the Governor’s veto, it would have become law.

We are very lucky that we had a (R) governor in office that actually used his veto power. Odds are we will not keep the Gov’s seat for long given the ever-increasing ‘blueness’ of the state. Watch for CA-like policies to become the law of the land as that happens. Look at the other west-coast states where the ‘blue wave’ effect has taken place for examples.

Gotta’ love folks that move away from bad places and then try to vote in the same failed policies over and over.

Take your vote out on jury duty and just go not guilty it is the only way we can get our votes to count you don’t have to keep your promise on jury duty brailsford vs Georgia United States Supreme Court just don’t explain anything

That’s a good part of the problem in CA as well. People here put up with all manners of abuse and transgressions, simply for the climate and nature. On Hawaii, that must be an even bigger hurdle. Leaving for a barren dessert, or a semipermanent snowcave over gun laws, has got to be a bit harder when you’re used to a living in a tropical paradise.

I left Oahu in 1989. Discovered the gun hobby when I moved to Florida. Then I moved to Arizona and discovered I could shoot for free in the desert. Wide open spaces, exploring ghost towns, and being able to drive for days and days without seeing the same thing twice. I don’t miss Hawaii one bit!

you may want to look at cost of living ratio the northeast tends to have high cost of living. I transferred to a university of Nevada from California and my education and living costs have halved. it may even be acceptable to take less money if cost of living is favorable plus there are places with WAY lower taxes than NJ

Oh I agree that cost of living here is a joke as well. But I work in a pretty niche industry that exists here, Boston, and California. Not exactly places worth uprooting for. So at BEST I’d be looking at switching to a job with similar skill sets but different applications, which means not just a pay cut proportional to cost of living, but very likely a pay cut back to entry-level.

Admittedly it’s kind of my own fault for being in the field of robotics, but alas, it is what interests me.

1) People are leaving the liberal supposed gun safe havens. No, gun laws do not keep or attract people, but other policies by the same gun grabbing politicians is enough to force people out. In general, people want to be more free. A tax, be it an actual financial burden or regulatory burden once it becomes to high, people simply move

2) People are leaving. When they come to your state they are either coming with a pro-gun or anti-gun bent. It is important to understand where people are moving from and where they are moving to because they bring their politics with them too. Once gun-shine states could easily become anti-gun. See CO for a reference.

As Nick stated, there are many reasons people leave. The point is they are leaving the liberal progressive paradises. If these states where so great and their laws and policies so wonderful, people would not be leaving.

Born and bred native Arizonan of 42 years here and I can explain Arizona’s high percentage. It’s idiot transplants that come here and do nothing but bitch about how much they hate this state but THEY NEVER LEAVE! There are two things you have great odds betting money on with these people. One, they’re from the Northeast. Two, they have lived here for YEARS but won’t move.

Over the years I’ve gone from asking why they hate my beloved state to simply saying ‘then GTFO’.

Currently reside in AZ, although I grew up and resided in the NE for most of my life. Me personally, I enjoy the weather, lack of humidity and open spaces. People who grew up elsewhere may not be used to it and dislike AZ solely because of it. I would also note that I know quite a few who have relatives and friends that live NE. That could be a big factor for the high percentage of AZ that may “want” to leave.

Obviously this study was not done to directly linked the desire to move to how pro2A the state is. However, (in general) pro-2A states tend to have less taxes and be more “pro-growth” than the anti-2A states, which provides more variables to why individuals tend to flock to the former states over the later.

One of NC’s bigger ‘failure’ is taxes…highest gasoline tax in the southeast, for example, and the State Income tax has been a hassle for at least three decades. If you ever have earned part of your income out of state, you know what I mean.

But, we do have SB 410 sitting in committee, which is one to keep an eye upon. Constitutional Carry will REALLY upset the bed-wetters in Chapel Hill and Asheville.

Yes, which all falls in line that highly social progressive states with no economic plans suck and if they oppress you with taxes and regulation they will also try to control every other aspect of your life as well. Part of that stupid regulation is also gun control. At some point, people finally say “enough is enough” and move out. Once money and intellectual capital moves out, the slide to the bottom is not soon far behind.

In several states they are trying to pass laws such that if you move, you still owe the state you moved from money for x years for the economic impact you caused, stupid yes, but that does not stop them from trying

In the Northeast, they HAVE TO use tax incentives and Tax free zone just to keep existing companies in place. If your policies are so good, you would not need to do that.

The northeast and CA has major infrastructure problems and they keep hiking the gasoline tax. If the proposed legislation at the Federal Level Combined with gas hikes in states like CT, commuters in CT will be paying over $1/gallon in gas taxes alone and it still will not be enough to fix all the road and bridges that have been neglected all to fund social programs that simply do not work.

Schools are suffering. NYS spends about $20K/child and they are ranked last in education although they spend the most in the entire USA.

All the major liberal havens have over promised and under funded on their pension liabilities. Either taxes will need to be raised or pensions have to be more in line with reality. Which way do you believe the big state employee unions in places like NY, CT, NJ and MA will vote?

The NE has a major age issue. There will be a point where there are more people in their 60s and retired than people bringing in the taxes. Add to that the pull on pensions and many NE states will be in the Red.

Revenues to the state are dropping. In CT the budget office for Malloy has yet to be even close to their predictions and there is always an excuse of the day. The latest being that everyone would get a $55 refund only now it looks like they will be in the red yet again missing their 4th estimate in a row.

When the middle class leaves, you really have no economy. You have the really rich which in the NE includes many of the politicians many of whom are millionaires or the really poor sucking every service there is.

Unless some drastic economic revelation happens, many states are just screwed. It will not happen in a year, or maybe even 10 but there has been a measureable decline and the constant has a democratic progressive legislature more focused on social giveaways and with zero focus on business or economic development — much like Obama’s administration. Social programs rely on a constant flow of money. You can do nothing with a fiat currency and no economic plan. It is almost hilarious that the party that wants social justice in every way has zero focus on economic opportunity that would in turn allow all boats to float.

States that have vastly under-funded public employee pensions. Illinois is one of the worst, with California, NY, NJ, RI, MA and several other “progressive” states well down this path. They keep seeking to choke more and more revenue out of a shrinking private sector, and the private sector is seeking to shift their operations out of parasite states.

ya so i was in the military. went civilian security. blackwater moyock. got emt. cdl class A for 25 years. ccw in nevada. lol. i moved from maryland to the southwest not to escape gun laws or anything so trivial, but to escape MARYLAND. its an armpit. the only thing i miss is the food. screw everything and everyone else. i now live in cali. but i’m not moved by the gun laws. i’m not concerned. i dont worry about them. i dont break them either, but theyre unimportant. the police here are sensible people. they let people shoot responsibly. they leave people be. if you are being a nuisance, if you are posing a threat, youre probably going to be shot. but thats ANYWHERE. just be sensible. be smart about the things you do. where you carry your weapon. how and why you carry your weapon. at some point in a warriors life, he becomes aware that there isnt always a necessity for a firearm. knives, even hands have the capacity to harm or kill. confident, sensible people understand this. they understand that a firearm isnt a ‘weapon’ per se, but a tool to accomplish a given task. just like a hammer. or a phillips head screwdriver. its how you use the tool that defines. thats just my 2 pennies.

Just to follow up, I love Texas and visit there as often as I can but it can be uncomfortably hot and humid.

Also, the reason so many people want to move from Louisiana is a quality of life issue. The same political leaders who support Article Two of the Constitution and make Louisiana a pro-gun state are also inept, dishonest, ambitious and arrogant and make life here almost unbearable for many residents.

I dated a girl for about 3 years and we had moved to Arizona together and things were serious… Until she got a promotion that would take us to California. She took the job and I helped load that uhaul truck and waived goodbye. No way am I going to trade away my rights, especially with so many fish in the sea!

Yes sir, I know way too many “men” that want and like guns, but are so damn whipped by their women- who either don’t like them or just don’t want them spending the money, (even if its the mans money)- that they can never have one. They restrict more guns than Bloomberg does. I cant understand how some men live like that. I’ve never let a woman run my life like that. My ex wife thought I had “enough” guns back when I had only 8. She’s an ex for a reason. Well, many reasons. She was a nasal northerner too. The girl I got now is a southern girl, so there’s no issue.

Don’t you get it!
People in Ilinois and Connecticut want to leave because the gun control laws in those states are not strict enough and the ones they have aren’t WORKING fast enough.
Causation is a funny thing.

Having been born in CA and growing up in CO I remember being done with living in the state at age 17. After living on the East Coast for several years, guess where I ended up moving? Colorado, right now I’m looking into acquiring some land in Montana/ Wyoming and moving up there, either that or somewhere warm

That is another reason why governors and lieutenant governors should be recruiting not only businesses but talented and gifted people to move from states with restrictive gun laws (can I hear a New York, a California?) to other states. For other reasons, such a huge taxes, and other restrictive rights many have already started to migrate out of those states.

Yup, I’ve been living here in GA now for years, and consider GA my home, and where I’m from. When I moved here from the midwest, after also living all over the country, I embraced the local culture. I love it here. Way too many F***ing northerners come down here thinking they run the world and everyone should act, talk, look, do things the same, and listen to the same shitty music they do. They’re true imperialists.

I’m a real estate lawyer in NW Indiana also licensed in Illinois. Almost every client I have is someone moving out of Illinois and into Indiana. Only problem is those people move here to escape the Democrat mess in Illinois but continue to vote Democrat! Fortunately, the rest of Indiana is solid Red state and nullifies the one Blue county in the NW corner of Indiana.

we get some of that down here on the east side indiana by Richmond, damn people from Dayton and Columbus leave cause they don’t like it there and they they complain its not like home what the hell? duh this indiana not city ohio. but the biggest thing ive noticed is how much industry from Ohio and Illinois has moved to indiana.

well there’s indiana then there’s the rich parts of indy the people that live there seem to live in dream land and i only seen maybe 5 protesters at the NRA convention and they were out in front of the war memorial in the center of the city now where near the convention center or the stadium. i did hear slide fire photo bombed the hell out of them.

Northern Virginia should be listed as a separate entity in this poll from the rest of the state. I would never again live up there in that sprawl, no offense to anyone that lives there, but I love the state. The gun laws are far less restrictive than many other states to boot

Most of the states in which people are eager to leave, or leave within 12 months, appear to be states in which a populous urban core(s) has come to dominate state politics, and has different political propensities than the the suburban/exurban preference. Another close correlation is the desire to leave where the urban political machines are powered by minority voters. California has the urban core fact, but the urban core left-wing voters are not so clearly just minority voters. Idaho and South Carolina probably reflect economic facts, as both offer the lower 2/3’s of workers relatively poor wages and opportunities without some counter-balancing fact such as a sunny comfortable climate, an ocean, or other.

Extremely populous urban centers reduce the value of votes and preferences for everyone else in the state, and automatically trigger left-of-center politics due to Cognitive Dissonance in its true meaning coined by Leon Festinger: density of population and proximity to residents having different politics than a given person cause or encourage that person’s views to change, accommodate the near neighbors.

I was thinking the same thing, Ropingdown. Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, people could escape oppressive urban cores by moving to the suburbs. Now, that the urban core’s have grown so powerful and minority voters vote in solid blocs, their only option is to leave the state. I grew up in MA, spent 30 years in the military, and find it absolutely unthinkable to return. Happy in FL but the trends are not good here, either.

Us New Yorkers have seen the most out-migration than any other state in the last decade or so, especially upstate. A lot of us Upstaters are leaving over things like the weather, taxes and lack of job opportunities. Downstaters usually leave over the insane cost of living in that region but are quickly supplanted with immigrants and people who want to live somewhere trendy. Honestly stict/unconstitutional gun laws make up a small portion of why people are leaving, but it’s still a factor.

The point is that the same politicians that favor/push strict unconstitutional gun laws are also strongly correlated with the politicians that pass high taxes and damage the local job market with ill conceived public administration strategies.

Correlation to gun laws may not equal causation, but correlation does show a quantifiable relationship between two data sets.

The people wanting to leave AZ are liberals scared of SB1070 and other things that would make it difficult to keep living in the state illegally, getting benefits from the government while here illegally, and otherwise ruin their attempts at mooching off the system. We have the best gun laws (or lack their of) in the nation.

NO. Moving is not an option because you will drag your dumb voting habits with you. Stand your ground, and vote dammit. Do know how few people actually ever turn out for elections? If 50% of people showed up to vote and merely overthrew their representatives then it would make a huge difference.

There’s a reason no one shows up to vote anymore, at least not voters who are still living….the public realized long ago both parties are mirror images of each other with only window topping differences giving the superficial illusion of difference.

Actually, a lot of people don’t vote because they think their vote cancels their spouses, which is the wrong attitude.

Not liking candidates is not an excuse. You never ever get a candidate you agree with 100%. You need to get out and vote for the most _____ candidate that can win. If you agree with one candidate 51% and another 49%, vote for the 51%. Change only comes incrementally.

Idaho is horrible, not bad from a 2A stand but cold, grizzlies run rampant, roads are horrible, wind blows constantly, snow piles deep and they rarely plow, people are like hillbilly’s and rednecks, did I mention the wind blows a lot!

Please, print that in every state, & get the flatland furriners that moved here to leave. (or maybe let them wear radio collars & go live in the woods to protect bears & wolves from us horrible hunters :).

Well here in Oregon it rains 364 days out of the year AND we get snow AND if you have any allergies it’ll just be hell for you. I’m always cold and the internet is slow, anybody who moves here is crazy. We don’t even have rollercoasters like California does (man California is awesome!) It’s a good place for gun owners but that’s about it.

Yeah I want to leave Illinois. I live a mile from Indiana. It’s not just guns laws screwing up Illinois. The laws got better but Illinois might be the worst run state in America. Possibly 100 billion in debt. Dominated by Dumbocrats. And the republitards ain’t much better. I can leave with no negative impact to business too. I already spend most of my $ there.

I don’t give one rat’s rear end. Stay in your slave states. Yes, yes, yes, I understand, there are some good people in these states and they don’t deserve this. However, the vast majority do deserve this. The proof? Voter turnout.

I don’t want to hear how they’re outnumbered by liberals. The facts, especially stark in Connecticut, are that these so-called conservatives do not vote. If you haven’t looked up the stats on these states’ Sec. of State offices and aren’t familiar with the facts, then do not speak. These people sit by in the primaries and let weak GOP candidates run and win. Then they sit out the general elections and let these weak candidates run and lose to better organized, evil Dem. candidates. Eventually, when it gets too bad, they do flee their slave states for well run free states like Texas. Now, having not learned their lesson, they bring their same old tired, failed liberal policies here, thinking it will be different this time.

That puts our lifestyle at risk. So stay in the misery you’ve created for yourselves. Live it and live it, or work to reverse it, because if you flee and bring your liberal defeatism to the free states and destroy them, too, then you’re sending the country on a dangerous and tragic trajectory.

Usually really like what Nick chooses to write about, but this is kind of lame and reaching. I really like TTAG and it’s the gun site I check most, but sometimes pulls a little too heavy towards gun nuts and is just as unscientific and annoying as opinions and claims made by antis. This article being a good example, I see a little bit of hypocrisy.

You want to really see something on a map, try plotting out the folks who want more gun laws vs the folks who don’t on an intra-state level and you’ll soon see the krups of this whole issue is the City folks wanting to shove their twisted, ignorant, stupid anti-gun policies on the rest of us.

All they know about guns is what they see on the teevee. They didn’t grow up around responsible gun owners. They have no place to shoot a gun (besides maybe an indoor range) and hunting is something that someone else does for them, or that only happens on the TV. Hell these people barely see trees, let alone wildlife. It really is a different culture. They have no respect for history either. It plays no role in their metro world.

You see it in everything. MAYORS vs “illegal’ guns illustrates the issue quite clearly. This is a geo-political struggle between the Cities and the remaining population of the states.

Look at the map of what counties supported ‘SAFE’ act in NY. It’s almost 100% opposed in all counties except NYC’s county.

We need to call this out for what it is and contain this ‘sheep virus’ to the Cities. Let them do all the anti-gun city ordinances they want and watch their cities go up flames like Chicago. Because they still don’t get it. All your stupid anti gun laws do is take the gun away from the good guys and gals and further embolden the bad guys and gals. Just like the war on drugs. You don’t make drugs go away. You just create more profit for criminal enterprises who don’t care about following the laws.

…and of course there are exceptions. But look at it on a map and the picture is quite clear.

I was born and raised in CA. In the last week I acquired a house, drivers license, vehicle registration, and voter registration in FL. (Already had a CCW) As much as I love California’s natural beauty and pleasant weather, I could not be happier to abandon that sinking ship.

I don’t think the 39% of Mississippians who want to move are motivated by strict gun laws. We have some pretty 2A-friendly laws on the books. I suspect those folks want to move because our wages are so low, and our public education system is abysmal.

Am I the only one here who will admit that the Gallup poll reasonably has very little to do with how 2A friendly a state is? Plenty of the gun-friendly states are ‘Average’ or worse regarding people that want to move. And other states, such as MA and CT, I can list about 30 reasons why people want to move that trump the ability to own and carry a firearm (cost of living, the real estate prices, property taxes, traffic, general overpopulation, etc). I’m sure some people want to move from certain states because they don’t like the local cuisine, but that doesn’t mean I should try to correlate this poll with the states that have cruddiest restaurants. Otherwise, one could say everyone wants to leave Georgia and Mississippi because the gun laws are lax.

What annoys me sometimes is how this blog does a good job at pointing out the gun-toting crazies and saying, “That’s not us,” but then goes and tries to make a baseless correlation of why people want to leave certain states. We want others on the fence about the issue to see us as just regular folk that believe in the right to bear arms. However, pulling posts like this out of the air at random don’t help those people from seeing the good side of gun owners. The actual poll article lists reasons why people that are likely to move will move. Top answers are Work and Friends/Family. Not, “Because I can’t bring my EDC onto college campuses.”

What?! That map has nothing to do with moving due to gun restrictions. Example being Nevada. You do realize that Nevada is in the top of the list for gun friendly states?

I’ll tell you the real reason Nevada residents want to GTFO. Number one, there are literally no jobs. Number two, there are literally no houses available at realistic prices. The housing market of Nevada is still in the dumps. Number three, we get all the Kalifornia kunts visiting. In fact I currently have a group of scam artist, paryting, disrespectful jackasses renting the house across the street (also owned by a Kalifornia asshole).

Disclaimer: I do realize there are a small few nice people in Kali, and I generously extend the benefit of the doubt to the readers here at TTAG. All bets are off where I to ever meet you in person though. I judge by actions.

Ya well that s complete Bullsh?t with Nevada unless the poll was done in Liberal we moved over from Stupid California and are trying to bring our dumbass ideas with us,Las Vegas,then I could understand but even with that Nevada is one of the best states to live in for pro gunners .Even better than Texas as we allow open Carry,Shall issue state,Machine gun and Silencer private ownership ok.A good majority of people Conceal carry .
The problem with ALL these polls is nobody ever checks out the accuracy of the polls.So when you do you find out what I found out every poll with out failure Always poll 1000 people or less never more than 3000 people and that becomes the”90 percent of American’s BS the liberals sprue out!
Bloomberg tried to get Universal Backgrond Checks passed in Nevada.The Liberal tried to lie and say 86percent if Nevada was behind it,the Governor did his own poll and the result was 27000 for/153000 against.Soooo,your Nevada poll is simply More BS!

The actual poll has is not about gun ownership, it is just about the respondent’s desire to relocate to another state. Nevada is on the list for a number of reasons (none of which have to do with guns, well, unless some lib/progs don’t like the less restrictive laws in Nevada and want to leave because we are all bloodthirsty barbarians), many of which in Nevada are related to jobs, income, housing, and quality of life issues.

I’d actually love to see how those figures break down in Nevada between Clark county and the rest of Nevada (or Break out Vegas and Reno from the less urban areas) to see how those figures play out. I’d be willing to bet that the number of folks wanting to bail are highly skewed toward Clark or Vegas/Reno.

Not only is it the awful gun laws that have my girlfriend and I planning to move to America (PA) next year. It’s the ridiculously high income tax, rain tax, flush tax, influx of section 8 housing, early release of murderers and rapists (if they even serve time), the DREAM act (“hey illegals come here! we’ll give you a driver’s license!”) and many other reasons. Lord willing, we will be gone next year and no regrets will be had by either of us.